AHL: Worcester Sharks’ start can’t be worse

The DCU Center, or at least the ice-level part of it, has had a certain buzz to it the last couple of days.

Coaches Roy Sommer and David Cunniff are grappling with some fancy new video equipment, and most of what they’ve been looking at has not been fun to watch.

General Manager Wayne Thomas and goalie coach Corey Schwab were on the premises, as well as scout Bryan Marchment, one reason being that the NHL doesn’t have anything going on at the moment.

Another possible reason, though, is that the same Sharks who looked like one of the AHL’s best teams going into the season are one of the worst after the first two weeks.

“It’s not time to panic,” captain John McCarthy said. “We’ve only played four games and there are 72 left. But there is a sense of urgency because we don’t want to be chasing .500 all year long. That’s a lousy way to go through a season.”

Worcester is not the only team off to a surprisingly poor start. Wilkes-Barre, one of the AHL’s consistently best teams, is 0-4-0 compared to the Sharks’ 0-3-1. Connecticut, which has made the playoffs in every season but one during its AHL years, was 0-3-1 in its first four games.

In their first six seasons, the Sharks’ two best starts were by their two worst teams. The 2007-08 Sharks were 4-0 after four games. Last year’s Sharks were 3-0-1.

Perhaps most comparable to this season’s Sharks is the Year 1 team, which had a heavy veteran presence. Even with Joe Pavelski in the lineup to begin the season, those Sharks were a mediocre 1-1-2 four games into it. They finished 41-28-11.

Still, it’s the way this Sharks edition has started that is worrisome. It has surrendered the first goal in every game; in the first three games, that goal came before the first period was three minutes old. In 265 minutes, Worcester has led for 7:09.

It does seem, and not just with the Sharks, that veteran teams take longer to get it together than young teams. McCarthy has been a slow starter during his tenure here, and for the first month of last season, Matt Pelech took so long to get up to speed that he was often a healthy scratch.

Worcester’s goaltending also has been disappointing, and it may be that with Alex Stalock, there is no hurrying the comeback process for somebody who went into the year having played just five AHL games in the previous 20 months.

The Sharks don’t need to do anything differently, Sommer said, adding: “We just have to be better.”

McCarthy has one point, an assist, in the first four games. It has the same for Brandon Mashinter. Jon Matsumoto doesn’t have a point, and all three have been 20-goal scorers in the AHL. Not only do the Sharks have to be better, logic says they will be.

One thing is certain — they can’t be any worse.

1. Who is the last player to win the Les Cunningham Award as league’s most valuable player while skating for a Canadian-based team?

2. Which goaltender holds the Worcester pro hockey record for most career shutouts?

3. Who is the Sharks’ all-time leading playoff scorer?

Answers below.

Thanks to Eric Lindquist, the Sharks’ sharp-eyed PR director, who pointed out a three-year-old math mistake in this columnist’s old facts and figures. Worcester went into this season a little more than 9,000 fans shy of the one million mark for their history, not just under 7,000. It all means the Sharks need about 2,500 tomorrow night to reach seven figures. … The opponent for that game is the undefeated Bridgeport Sound Tigers with an all-Worcester coaching staff. Scott Pellerin has replaced Brent Thompson as the No. 1 man, with Worcester Hockey Hall of Famer Eric Boguniecki in his second year as an assistant. … The New York Islanders’ move to Brooklyn means that the long-held assumption that the Rangers would wind up moving their AHL affiliate there is out the window. The last couple of seasons have been tough in Hartford, at least off the ice, so it will be interesting to see how long the Rangers stay in Connecticut. Here’s one vote to bring back Wolf Pack as the nickname, even though it won’t mean anything in terms of dollars and cents. … Rookie defenseman Justin Schultz of Oklahoma City is Player of the Week. He was 3-1-4 and plus-6 in two games for the Barons. … Stalock lost the assist he was originally credited with in Lewiston last Friday, so he’s back to one for the year. The seven he has for his career are the most of any Worcester goalie, and he has more career points than 70 other players who have worn a Sharks uniform. … That 0 for 9 on the power play on Saturday night marked the second time Worcester has done that, and both have been against Albany. The Sharks have never had worse.

What a league. One day after Binghamton sent Ben Blood to Elmira of the ECHL, Portland sent Evan Bloodoff to Gwinnett. … So much for the affiliation change — this year’s Norfolk Admirals, newly affiliated with the Anaheim Ducks and with no returnees from last season — have started 4-0-0 to extend their regular-season winning streak to 32 games. The last time Norfolk lost a regular-season game was on Feb. 5 at Springfield, 4-2. Last year’s Admirals are in Syracuse, now affiliated with the Tampa Bay Lightning this season, and are 4-0-1, including a shootout loss to Rochester on opening night. So while the Crunch does not have a 33-game point streak, most of the players wearing a Syracuse uniform do. … Considering that, it makes you wonder how good Tampa Bay is going to be in not-too-long, assuming the NHL eventually resumes play. … That wild, 7-4 game Worcester played against Portland in Lewiston isn’t close to being the craziest of the season to date. It isn’t even the craziest played by the Pirates, who lost to St. John’s in overtime, 8-7, on Tuesday night. In its first four games this season, Portland won one, 7-4, and lost, 8-7, 6-3 and 6-4. It may be reasonable to assume that goaltending is an issue there. If the Pirates get that solved, they’ll be very dangerous. If they don’t, they’ll be an awful lot of fun to watch unless you’re one of their coaches. … Typically, though, there are a lot of goals scored early in the season, before the videotape clicks in and coaches figure out how to deploy their players better. Syracuse came back from a 5-0 deficit to beat Binghamton on Saturday, 6-5, and Rochester won in Hershey that night, 8-7. … Vagabond goalie Dov Grumet-Morris, once of the Harvard Crimson, turned in a shutout for San Antonio on Saturday night as the Rampage beat Milwaukee, 1-0. In 87 AHL games, Grumet-Morris has nine shutouts all by himself. In 480 AHL games, the Sharks have 14 — period.

Many former Worcester players, both Sharks and IceCats, are in the top European league, the KHL, especially to start this season. That list includes ex-Shark Patrick Davis with CSKA Moscow; former Shark Lukas Kaspar and ex-IceCats Sergei Varlamov and Jaroslav Obsut with Donbass; ex-IceCat Daniel Corso with Dinamo Minsk, former ’Cat Lubos Bartecko with Lev Praha in Prague, and playoff-only IceCat Trevor Gillies and short-time ’Cat Brian Fahey, both with Chekhov.

1. Steve Larouche was the AHL MVP for the Prince Edward Island Senators in 1994-95, Worcester’s first season in the league.

2. Curtis Sanford had 10 shutouts for the IceCats, all coming in three seasons — 2002-03 through 2004-05.